Crushed Bean Cafe – Croydon

East and West Croydon is a black hole of great coffee shops but I for one am glad to say that the landscape is changing – and it’s all the better due to the recent opening on Crushed Bean. Michael Haim and his business partner opened up the cafe on may 13, 2015 and thus heralded a new day to office workers and their early morning commute looking for third wave coffee in Croydon.

The guys were previously living in South East London and were looking to open in the coffee heartland of Hackney, Hoxton, Shoreditch – you know how it goes. As you would expect they found the area way overprices so started poking their noses further afield and when this corner lot was brought to their attention they jumped at it. They basically found it by accident – and after a two month refurbishment they opened their doors. But like any hospitality business – you open when needs must – not when you’re 100% ready. Soon their downstairs room will be ready and visitors will have the option of sitting at street level or one below.

Coming from decent coffee stock the boys have 6 years coffee experience. Previous to this they were running the Biagio Coffee Van outside St Paul’s tube station – so you might recognise their faces. They are working closely with The Bread Factory based in Hendon for a great choice of pastries and snacks on offer. Toasted sandwiches with fillings like salmon, avocado with a few more planned once downstairs has been completed.

Coffee is courtesy of Alchemy Coffee. They’re still deciding on what coffee will make the cut, so they may have a few different roasters and blends on offer for you to try and give some feedback. Currently they have the Alchemy Opus Espresso – more chocolate and similar to what the American and Australian palettes are used to and also the Elixir Espresso with blueberry, lime and cream notes. The single origin is an Ethiopia Yukro filter coffee with touches of Nectarine, Grapefruit and Vanilla. Need coffee to brew at home? You can pick up Alchemy coffee for purchase £7.50 per 250g.

In the works are a second grinder to offer more coffee options options and specialty teas from Teabranch – who are quite new to the market. Crushed Bean certainly has the corner of the market here. And they’re one of the only places open on a Sunday so swing by if you’re in need of some black oil.

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Welcome, and thanks for visiting Sharking for Chips and Drinks. We are a food and travel writer-photographer team, originally from London, now based in Melbourne.
We both have day jobs, but when we aren’t committed to the 9 till 5 grind we regularly contribute to a number of food and travel publications and websites in Australia and overseas, including:
Beer and Brewer magazine and The Ultimate Beer Guide
Melbourne Coffee Review handbook, website and iPhone app
Food and Drink guides covering London, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire
Elite Traveler magazine (US and Asia market luxury travel)
Gap Daemon website (international backpacker travel)
Currently we have a number of commissions in the pipeline. We have been featured in The Age’s Epicure supplement several times, most notably within a cover story focusing on Melbourne’s lunchtime dining scene. See for yourself here. After a very successful 2012, we started this year on a high when it was announced we had won the Expedia Blogger of the Year Competition – this means we have even more exciting adventures coming up in the next few months.
While we are currently living in Melbourne, we regularly return to our beloved London and have a very global view – this year will see us head to Italy, Japan and Korea in search of gourmet gems.